Auctioneers

COMMENT: ATG Editor Ivan Macquisten argues that the top end of the art market needs a reality check if it wants to remain in control of its own destiny

One of the greatest ‘barn finds’ ever has uncovered 60 classic cars – just one of which is a rare Ferraris valued at several million pounds – in outbuildings in the west of France.

Pre-war delivery vans advertising commercial brand names have long acquired trophy status in the Dinky toy market.

It was, say Timeline Auctions, “probably the most important medieval seal to come to market” and certainly the most important object the firm had ever offered for sale, according to CEO Brett Hammond.

Christie’s chief executive Steven Murphy has unexpectedly quit his post, saying he has completed the job he set out to do when appointed in 2010.

The outstanding lot of the latest Old Master auction series in London, ‘Rome, from Mount Aventine’ by J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851), was knocked down at £27m at Sotheby’s evening sale, setting a record price for the artist.

James Watson’s 1962 award for his work on DNA set a world record price for a Nobel Prize Medal at Christie’s in New York when it sold for $4.1m (£2.6m) hammer.

Nantwich auctioneers Peter Wilson set a new house record at their latest sale with this large Qianlong (1736-95) mark-and-period doucai ‘lotus and bats’ jar and cover.

This copper-gilt coffin plate, bearing an inscription in Latin with the dates of Oliver Cromwell’s birth, death and inauguration as Lord Protector and the arms of the Protectorate to the reverse, was found when his body was exhumed from the Henry VII chapel at Westminster Abbey on January 26, 1661.

Among the most important Asian works of art to come to market in the modern collecting era, an Imperial Ming dynasty embroidered silk thangka sold for HK$310m (£27m) at a Christie’s latest Chinese art series in Hong Kong.

Christie’s New York are offering the 1962 Nobel Prize gold medal awarded to Dr James D. Watson, one of the world’s greatest living scientists.

The £40,000 corkscrew with an old London Bridge connection sold by auctioneers Reeman Dansie on November 26 is an extremely rare Victorian patent.

Lady Jane Franklin (1791-1875) gained worldwide admiration for her efforts to trace her husband’s disappearance on his fatal 1845 voyage seeking the North West Passage.

New York has witnessed some spectacular auction prices of late and another came last week as ‘Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1’ by Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986) was knocked down at $39.5m (£26.3m) at Sotheby’s American art sale.

Stanley Gibbons have launched their online collectables marketplace dealing in low-value stamps, coins, postcards and memorabilia.

Bonhams will their launch their sales of Modern and Contemporary Art from Asia in Hong Kong on March 15 during the ‘Art Basel Hong Kong’ week.

COMMENT: As the saying goes, turnover is vanity, profit is sanity. Hold that thought as you consider the announcement that Bill Ruprecht is to stand down as CEO of Sotheby’s after nearly 15 years.

BILL Ruprecht is to stand down as chief executive, chairman and president of Sotheby’s as soon as they find a replacement.

This 17in (43cm) Fang bieri guardian palmwood figure from Gabon in West Africa set a house record at Netherhampton Salerooms in Salisbury when it sold for £88,000.

Sotheby’s Geneva managed to grab the headlines when the Henry Graves Supercomplication set a record for a timepiece at auction.